Has anyone tried either the Barnes 450gr TSX or the Barnes 450gr banded solid in a 45/70. I thought it might be interesting to try one of those in my Buffalo Classic.


Thanks
ZM

At 45-70 speeds, I would stick with a good hard cast FN, than Barns solids. As for the TSX, not ennough speed to open up much. Regular SP style bullets would work just fine, even the lowly Remington 405 will fit the bill. The 45-70 does not need primium quality bullets tha were designed for use at higher velocities. It would be like using .30cal. bullets designed for high velocity maginums in a 30-30.

Hog Killer

Zeke, Contact Barnes for specs on the bullets you are interested in, they'll tell you the effective working velocities of those bullets. Considering your rifle can push 500gr bullets to 1800-1900fps, they might and might not work. You may have to ream the throat to get the most use out of the .45-70 case with those long bullets, the BC has a short throat which doesn't help with big bullets.

I had questions of the 350gr XFB in my .405 Winchester Target, Ty Herring sent me all the info I needed on it including load data!

Tim

http://www.barnesbullets.com/contact.php

I was wondering if it was worth fooling around with just for fun.

I use the Remington 405's @ 1600fps or Speer 350's at 2200fps.

I'll give Barnes a call.

Does the 350gr XFB leave bad copper racing stripes like some of the other X bullets?

ZM

No, the 350gr XFB .411" bullets didn't foul much at all, but they didn't shoot worth a hoot either! I ended up sticking with the 300gr Hornady SP at 2435fps, it would put the first 2 rounds in the same hole then the 3rd a ¼" away!, but that could just be me!

Tim

45/70s in all there different versions are fun rifles. I shoot the marlin 1895. Love it to pieces. I get very near MOA with the Hornady 350 grain flatt nose, and just about the same with either Hornady or sierra 300 grain Hollow points.
If I were to get a ruger #1 in the 45/70 I might look for a hevier bullet load but if 350 grain is not enough bullet 45/70 is probably not enough cartridge.
...just 1 mans opinion. ...tj3006

FWIW Belt Mountain ( www.beltmountain.com ) makes their "Punch" bullet which looks to be a banded solid for the .45-70.



I've never used them and don't know how they're priced but some of the lever gun guys think they're the real deal.

quote:

f I were to get a ruger #1 in the 45/70 I might look for a hevier bullet load but if 350 grain is not enough bullet 45/70 is probably not enough cartridge.

If one fires a hard-cast 500-grain bullet at a MV of 1600 FPS, one might be surprised on just how much gun that is - whether from a .45/70 case or a 450 Nitro........

Make mine soft-cast, pure lead even. I don't know where all this "hard cast" bs comes from. A good lump of soft lead will do the job w/o fragmenting

Brent

an interesting comment on soft lead vs hard cast

i would agree with the soft. i was on a hog hunt a few years ago with some 44mag shooters who had made the hardest lead bullets possible.

they had convinced themselves the boars were armor plated. well their bullets blew right through the boars which kept on going and had to filled with lead (literally) to bring them down. i would think the soft would have expanded and knocked the boars down.

Brent, IF you read the whole tread, you would have seen this.

quote:

Has anyone tried either the Barnes 450gr TSX or the Barnes 450gr banded solid in a 45/70. I thought it might be interesting to try one of those in my Buffalo Classic.

and my response, that in a 45-70 a hard cast bullet would work just the same as a Barns soild.

Hog Killer

the 45/70 "spec" chamber is notoriously short. the TSX 450 gr is 1.515" long (average of 10 measured), which leaves you ~35gr of case, out of the 79gr you start with.. in other words, that bullet consumes 44gr of water capacity, or 56% of the case..

quickload says a MAX of 1642FPS muzzle vel, from a 24" barrel...

Which is the "minimum" that an X bullet will open up at.. at IMPACT...

hard lead vs soft lead..
Soft lead - <10B .. too soft to perform "As a solid".. expands at what, 800fps? at least it does in my 58caliber front stuffers

lynotype, un queched, it's >10B and <20B .. generally closer to 16-18B... does expand some

>20B to ~24B, non-expanding, acts like a solid... "shatter".. not hardly... punches BIG holes in 1/4" plate? Yes and no.. yes it does, no it doesn't tear ragged RIPS like a jacketed bullet.

>24B... well, bet you are quenching in mercury!!


I've shot cast in bigbores, up to and including 550 express, 500 jeffe, and 58 ML... and dug out bullets, or Kieth finds them on the ground.. good weight retention from the 22B bullets.. over 90%...

the 5B (pure lead) in my muzzle loaders PANCAKE at 1300fps impact..

If you must shoot "premium" bullets, make up a 450 alaskan, which can actually run these things at a decent speed.

45/70? unless you have a VERY custom throat (which I call a 45/70 Nitro -- it's MINE). the monometal copper bullets are a waste of money to find out it's a waste of effort, for anything over 400gr.


jeffe

/

PLEASE!!! Don't start the 45/70 cape buffalo hunting in Africa pissing contest again.



That topic has been throughly beaten into the ground several times elsewhere in these pages.


That'll teach me to ask a 45/70 question here. Never again.
I'll stick to the 405 Remmys and Speer 350's and continue to hunt pop cans with them. Thats all I was planning to hunt with the Barnes bullets anyway.

Thanks
ZM

quote:

Originally posted by Thomas Jones:
45/70s in all there different versions are fun rifles. I shoot the marlin 1895. Love it to pieces. I get very near MOA with the Hornady 350 grain flatt nose, and just about the same with either Hornady or sierra 300 grain Hollow points.
If I were to get a ruger #1 in the 45/70 I might look for a hevier bullet load but if 350 grain is not enough bullet 45/70 is probably not enough cartridge.
...just 1 mans opinion. ...tj3006

The "Government" load for the 45/70 was a 405 gr. (soft) lead bullet. I'm thinking the velocities were around 1200 fps.

Paul Matthews in "40 Yrs. With The 45/70" (1996) was shooting cast lead, paper patch bullets in the 400 gr. to 450 gr. realm for deer in Pennsylvania. He was also doing a lot of really "crazy" stuff with his loads -- like "priming" with Unique and using black powder, or even some of the smokeless like 3031.

But then his "40 yrs" started in 1950, and he was shooting guns built up from 19th century receivers.

American Indians called the Sharps Buffalo Rifle in 45/70 Govt. "The shoot today, kill tomorrow gun."

You can crank up the loads in a Ruger Number 1, but it's no 458 Lott. 400 gr. Speer FP are effective on Roosevelt Elk, although most shots locally (Oregon Coast) are under 100 yds. in heavy woods.

I developed a Soft spot for the speer 400gr jacket soft point in my hot handloads out of my marlin guide gun. I haven't been able to recover and bullets out of game since the blow thru deer but when shot into wet newspaper they penetrated and performed better than the 300gr hornady hollow points and 500gr round nose cast lead bullets.

The 500 gr didn't expand but deformed and went 38 inches with little weight loss (498gr), the speer went 34 inches but expanded to .623" and still weighed 382gr. When I searched for the 300gr I started finding jacket and lead fragments after 8 inches, the bulk of the jacket after 11 inches, and the largest piece of lead at 16 inches. It weighed 42gr. I think I loaded that one a little to hot. I probably could have loaded the 500gr hotter but i didn't since I couldn't find published data for a round that would feed through the marlin action except black powder loads.

Just for reference the USGI Armour Piercing round in 30-06 went 41" and except for the rifling engraved I couldn't tell it had been fired.

trekker111, try these in your levergun...

http://beartoothbullets.com/open_sight/archive_open_sight.htm/21

quote:

The "Government" load for the 45/70 was a 405 gr. (soft) lead bullet. I'm thinking the velocities were around 1200 fps.

There were actually TWO gv't loads for the .45/70 - the rifle load and the carbine load. The carbine load used the soft lead (swged) 405-grain bullet and 55 grains of powder. The rifle load used a 500-grain lead bullet and 70 grains of powder. As mentioned, both loads had a MV between 1200 to 1300 FPS. The rifle load was more powerful due to the heavier bullet.

quote:

Originally posted by El Deguello:

quote:

The "Government" load for the 45/70 was a 405 gr. (soft) lead bullet. I'm thinking the velocities were around 1200 fps.

There were actually TWO gv't loads for the .45/70 - the rifle load and the carbine load. The carbine load used the soft lead (swged) 405-grain bullet and 55 grains of powder. The rifle load used a 500-grain lead bullet and 70 grains of powder. As mentioned, both loads had a MV between 1200 to 1300 FPS. The rifle load was more powerful due to the heavier bullet.

The history I get on the 45/70 is that the original "Govt." spec was 45/70 - 405 Govt.

That's 45 cal. 70 grains BP and a 405 gr. bullet. I think I got it off either Paul Matthew's book (1996) or Wikipedia.

There are 45/90, 45/110, 45/120 loads for the Sharps. The second number designates the powder charge in grains of BP, and the brass/chambering is longer.

I've no doubt about a "Carbine" load. I would imagine for the Springfield Trapdoor carbine.

--------------

Here's an excerpt from "Find Articles":

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQY/is_7_45/ai_55605658

.45-70 Gov't

How can any discussion of self-contained metallic cartridges not include the one that started it all? The .45-70 was introduced in 1873 in conjunction with the single-shot "trapdoor" Springfield rifle. What distinguished the .45-70 from its contemporaries was that it was the first cartridge to incorporate a centrally-primed case capable of withstanding higher pressures than previous rimfire designs and it was reloadable to boot.

Even in its original loading of 70 grs. of blackpowder behind a 405 gr. lead bullet at about 1,300 fps, it was a formidable deer and black bear killer inside 125 yards. The fact that this 131-yearold cartridge is still being loaded by all three of our major ammo manufacturers is mind-boggling in itself, to say nothing of the fact that Ruger, Marlin and Browning still chamber rifles for it!

In deference to the few original '73 Springfields and Winchester Model 1886 rifles still floating around out there, commercial .45-70 ammo is loaded to pressure levels approximating the original BP loads -- about 25,000 psi.

In the Marlin Model 1885 handloaders can safely achieve performance levels well beyond factory loadings, and in modern rifles like the Ruger No. 1 and Browning 1885, handloaders can come fairly close to matching the .458 Win. Magnum. All that from a cartridge that first saw the light of day long before electricity, automobiles, telephones and flight. Amazing!

---------------------

I have a hard time with "handloader can come fairly close to matching the .458 Win. Mag."

Believe me the model 1886 does not require weenie loads in 45-70...anything the 1895 will digest the 86 will, safer to boot. I have one in 50-110 that shoots 450gr hard cast RFN's over 1850fps...

Rich

I'm waiting for a Ruger Number 1 to get back from Ruger for a lever latch replacement.

I have some Speer, 500 gr. "African Grand Slam" that I'm looking to load with some Hodgdon 4895, 3031, 4198 -- or whatever.

I thought those buffalo bore 430 LFNGC at 1925 we impressive , go to the beartooth site and check out the 45/70 pile drivers there 525 LFNGC up tpo 1800FPS with H4895 and these are lever gun loads .

You might also look at the Cor-Bon "pencil point" loads. Appears to be a fmj, but there is about a pencil point sized exposed lead surface there. Kills elk, and black bear and one (to date) 2100lb buffalo bull, each one shot and down and stayed down kill.

Rich